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50% Say Government Puts Wall Street Ahead of Main Street

Americans feel more strongly than ever that the government is more concerned with making Wall Street firms profitable than making the financial system work for the rest of us.

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey shows that 50% of Adults believe the federal government is more concerned with making Wall Street firms profitable than with making sure the U.S. financial system works well for all Americans. (To see survey question wording, click here.)

That’s up 12 points from 38% in June. But in September 2009, after some Wall Street firms began reporting sizable profits, 46% felt this way.

Thirty-one percent (31%) of adults now take the opposite view and say the government cares more about making the financial system work for all Americans, a number that has shifted little over the past year. Another 19% are undecided.

As for the government bailouts of the financial industry that began when the Wall Street meltdown broke into the headlines in September 2008, 81% of Americans say Wall Street, not taxpayers benefited more. Only seven percent (7%) say the average taxpayer benefited more from the bailouts, while 12% are undecided.

These numbers have changed little from July 2009 just after Goldman-Sachs announced that it had recovered and was reporting a record profit. Prior to that, in February 2009, just 67% thought Wall Street benefited more from the bailouts than the average taxpayer.

The survey of 1,000 Adults nationwide was conducted on January 14-15, 2011 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Field work for all Rasmussen Reports surveys is conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, LLC. See methodology.

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